Sha Crystal enchants...

This is more opinion than speculation.

WHY are there only 5 recipes in the game that use them? Anyone see anything relevant out there as to why they didn't release more recipes? You've always had "normal enchants" and then the "high end" versions.

Nexus Crystals were required for far more until they turned them into small prismatics.
Void Crystals were needed for several good recipes and then to craft everyone's Shadow resistance gear
Abyss Crystals had a whopping 14 enchants, and were required in a few crafts and for currency
Maelstroms were a currency and had 15 enchants and then you had pets.
Sha Crystals... 5 enchants. No other crafts. Not a currency to acquire other enchants.

In the current design, when they release catchup gear, Sha crystals will have a limited demand and almost nothing supporting a decent valuation of them since enchanters are completely capable of generating an endless supply - depending if the enchanters on your server actually perform the combination everyday. Should they release a method to retain epics from dungeons via drop (again, you know it's coming soon), you're looking at an absolute flood.

Certainly, many casual players are going with Windstorm or Elemental for their 463s and equate purple gear with purple matted enchants and are just waiting.

Is anyone else thinking about this?

At present, I have access to all these enchants and have since October, but I've noticed a steady decline in the value of the enchants with the exception of one day per week. Other days of the week this becomes high-investment-low-return and sometimes very, very close to investment. I'm fine investing 5000g to pull 5% ROI most days, especially on high gold cost items.

Anyone want to make a call on what direction we're going to go here? Will we see a high-end chest, glove, and back enchant? Maybe a better shield enchant? Right now the only dump for these are lucky drops for people, and only if they choose not to go with a competitive lesser enchant.

It would be my dream if they released new enchants behind dailies in future patches, which is what I think they will probably do. Otherwise the enchanting profession for high end enchants will diminish into obscurity when it comes to being decently profitable.

I think new enchants are coming honestly, be they raid drops or whatever. I sincerely hope they aren't bop raid drops like Blood Draining/Blade Ward were. Anyway, I would agree it would be ideal for them to be at the end of the rep rainbow with future reputations.

"A buyer has been found..." - The most beautiful words in the World...of Warcraft.

As an aside, they did release the Cata bracer enchants as rare world drops. I think they do want people to acquire them outside of raids, as has been the case for the most part since Wrath. I really forsee a few more high-ends coming from dailies.

WHY are there only 5 recipes in the game that use them? Anyone see anything relevant out there as to why they didn't release more recipes? You've always had "normal enchants" and then the "high end" versions.

Nexus Crystals were required for far more until they turned them into small prismatics.
Void Crystals were needed for several good recipes and then to craft everyone's Shadow resistance gear
Abyss Crystals had a whopping 14 enchants, and were required in a few crafts and for currency
Maelstroms were a currency and had 15 enchants and then you had pets.
Sha Crystals... 5 enchants. No other crafts. Not a currency to acquire other enchants.

In the current design, when they release catchup gear, Sha crystals will have a limited demand and almost nothing supporting a decent valuation of them since enchanters are completely capable of generating an endless supply - depending if the enchanters on your server actually perform the combination everyday. Should they release a method to retain epics from dungeons via drop (again, you know it's coming soon), you're looking at an absolute flood.

Certainly, many casual players are going with Windstorm or Elemental for their 463s and equate purple gear with purple matted enchants and are just waiting.

Is anyone else thinking about this?

At present, I have access to all these enchants and have since October, but I've noticed a steady decline in the value of the enchants with the exception of one day per week. Other days of the week this becomes high-investment-low-return and sometimes very, very close to investment. I'm fine investing 5000g to pull 5% ROI most days, especially on high gold cost items.

Anyone want to make a call on what direction we're going to go here? Will we see a high-end chest, glove, and back enchant? Maybe a better shield enchant? Right now the only dump for these are lucky drops for people, and only if they choose not to go with a competitive lesser enchant.

It would be my dream if they released new enchants behind dailies in future patches, which is what I think they will probably do. Otherwise the enchanting profession for high end enchants will diminish into obscurity when it comes to being decently profitable.

Not sure I see the point. There's no "endless supply" of Sha--they're by far the hardest and most expensive material to get aside from Spirit of Harmony. I like the low number of enchants myself--less stock to manage. The demand should be there for the weapon and wrist enchants throughout this expansion. The margins are low because the enchants take so many mats driving the price up...as the supply of crystals goes up from epics being disenchanted goes up, the price will come down and you'll sell more. Seems fine.

I've sold a few dozen of the weapon enchants at a profit of 1k to 4k apiece. They're my favorite source of income because they're so easy to make and so highly profitable.

There is an endless supply, as I stated. Enchanters make them daily, you don't acquire them via DE'd drops only anymore. I have 4 enchanters, which is 28 new Shas per week.

Hardest and most expensive? Cataclysm's release would definitely apply here, but not MOP. You didn't just run to the AH and craft up a Maelstrom for less than 300g at the release of the content. I can spam trade and get 10 made for a small tip in 20 minutes.

I can see why you believe them to be rare, I make in a week what statistically sells in a day on your realm. These are a low turn, low profit item at this point (on my realm) simply because of the sheer number available daily. Again, server dependent, I know many are on small servers. We see about 50 Dancing Steels posted per day with about a 25% sell-through, when many of you have 1-2 available on the AH at any given time, economies of scale and all that. The problem we have here is 5% profitability which is so razor thin you can easily take a loss with a correction and this is purely because of supply.

The point is that we are limited in the outlet for these crystals, and this is the lowest number of enchants we've ever had available for the highest end material. You do eventually hit a point of saturation. There's no gating to being able to make these, no rep to grind, so you end up with every 85+ Enchanter snagging the dust for a quick 30% flip. There has to be a more grand design in the works here. Similar to how BS/LW/Tailoring have always enjoyed new patterns with each tier.

Holy CRAP, your realm's throughput is 10x the average. Interesting to see that my own realm is mostly average but just a little above it, I presumed mine might be below-average. I usually have the lowest price on Jade Spirit and Dancing Steel enchants and sell one every day or two, but even with that low throughput I'm constantly low on crystals. Even with selling a dozen of each sha enchant per day your crystal supply is too high? I'd think that demand would push the cost of crystals down on your realm if this were the case, yet they go for the same 500g or so on both our realms. I'm looking forward to the increased crystal supply with the next round of gear just so I'm not constantly out of them.

I suspect Blizzard may not introduce more patterns for the same reason (whatever that might be) that they jacked up the mat costs. What did most cata enchants take for maelstroms, two or three? Ten seems pretty steep for a single enchant.

Actually your realm is tough to figure in general. How could Sha Crystal costs on your realm still be 500g when the enchants are selling barely above the cost of ten of them? Who the heck is buying them at that cost? Wow, the competition on your realm must be cutthroat. Looking at the price history for your realm from the last two months, it also looks like the last two weeks have been particularly tight on the weapon enchants--I wouldn't be selling them at all at those prices. Seems like something has to give there, either mats will come down or scroll prices will go up, because enchanters just don't work for free.